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Rage Virus
The Rage Virus is a fictional disease in 28 Days Later, the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, and 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later. Origin Two Cambridge University scientists named Clive and Warren were trying to isolate the specific neurochemicals that cause anger and excessive aggression in humans in order to develop an inhibitor that regulates anger control issues. Warren decided that it was waste of time to experiment on volunteers from the school for the experiment because Cambridge students obviously didn't have uncontrollable rage. So h manages to get a contact at a police station to give him a violent criminal as a test subject. There was a problem with the delivery system: The injections were too diluted so Warren increased the dosage. However, the inhibitor still had no effect and when the test subject was about to attack Warren and Clive, Warren was forced to kill him. He then immediately decided they would experiment on chimpanzees, as Clive had been suggesting. As Warren and Clive were burying the criminal, Clive sneezed - giving Warren an idea. They had known that delivering widespread with a pill wouldn't do, neither would an aerosol. He decided that they should use a contagion as a delivery system. He located a certain genome in a strain of the Ebola virus. Using this new delivery system, the two exposed a chimpanzee to the inhibitor. However, the inhibitor mutated. In the chimpanzee, it had the opposite effect of what it was supposed to do. That is, it caused the chimpanzee to be full of uncontrollable rage. Warren had "created a rage virus." Clive was so disgusted by this that he quit. He later informed an animal rights eco-terrorist organization about the experimentation of animals and proceeded to shoot himself. A group of those eco-terrorist would later break into the lab and free the infected rage filled chimpanzee. That chimpanzee attacked and infected them and Warren. From them, the rage virus spread throughout the island of Britain. Characteristics The Rage Virus causes extreme aggression in a victim only ten to thirty seconds after being infected with the disease. From that point on, the victim seeks out and viciously attacks any uninfected person to the extent of anything else, even self-preservation. The disease is easily transmissible through any bodily fluid. Because of this extreme contagiousness and very short incubation time, a crowd of hundreds could be infected by one single individual in a matter of minutes. The Virus gives those Infected a heightened mobility and endurance, thus enabling them to quickly rampage through miles and miles of territory and invade entire towns, as shown in 28 Weeks Later. The Virus also seems to change the behaviour of the Infected, because before they were generally diurnal and slept at night; but in the space of time they are Infected they become nocturnal and sleep in the day. The graphic novel based on the films supports that Rage is a recombinant strain of Ebola, though its symptoms are similar to that of Rabies. One of the prominent physical features of all the Infected is their eyes, which glow a brilliant red, symbolizing their supreme anger and hatred for other living people. Although the symptoms of the Rage Virus are reportedly similar to Rabies, according to the CDC rabies has an incubation period ranging from one week to over a year. A 2 to 3 month period is typical in the clinical setting and the disease is almost always fatal. As of now, there have only been 10 reported rabies survivors. Also unlike the film, rabies is typically spread via exposure to saliva of an infected animal. Contact with blood or other bodily fluids will not spread the disease. Immunity 28 Weeks Later explores the discovery that there are certain characters that possess a natural immunity to the Rage virus. In the film, Alice, who is discovered hiding in her family's old home, is a carrier of the disease but remains immune to its effects. Carriers such are still capable of spreading the infection, despite their own apparent immunity and will not display any symptoms of the virus except for partially red sclera. Nevertheless, Scarlett, District 1's chief medical officer, suggested that research be conducted on Alice's blood sample to study and ultimately locate a possible vaccine. Unfortunately, Alice inadvertently spreads the infection before any research can be conducted. In the film, attention is given to the fact that Alice and her son Andy possess heterochromic eye color; a seeming indicator of their immunity, though nothing is directly stated that this trait is linked immunity to the virus. When Andy is attacked by his infected father at the film's climax, he displays no symptoms of the Rage virus, other than infected blood seeping into his eye. Despite this apparent immunity, he also became a carrier himself. Trivia *Danny Boyle has stated that in the films, primates are the only animals that can carry the virus (a fact that is further touched upon in the second film in the series). External Links *Lit of Fictional Diseases - Wikipedia.org * Rage Virus - Zombiepedia References Category:Movies